The Equalities and Human Rights Commission this week tried to justify its existence by publishing it Triennial Review on How Fair is Britain . The document itself is huge but there are a number of areas that are worth considering. Firstly, does it really look at make issues, secondly what statistics are available on men, what issues the media itself highlighted and lastly, what it plans to do to support men and end male discrimination.
Issues
The tone of the document is still overtly pro-women. Not just because it concentrates it equality agenda on issues that primarily affect women but also continues to ignore male equivalent issues - the discrimination by omission problem.
The Executive Summary shows this clearly for example. The section on Life starts on the great news that women are living longer but the life expectancy gap between men and women merits a cursory sentence.
On domestic violence it mentions that women form an ethnic background or who are disabled are more likely to under-report of they are a victim. There is no mention that men ar twice as likely not to tell anyone than a women (Home Office figures) and of course whilst it says that 73% of incidents are likely to take place against women, it does not mention at all the fact that why is there therefore not 27% of services aimed at male victims (there is probably about 1%).
On the issue of education, cursory mention is made of boy's under-performance. Such is the Commission's worldview fixated on women, that it mentions that girls outperform boys at every level of education and that 59% go to university. If it had a neutral view, it would lead with boys under-perform girls and fewer go to university.
The report reveals that 40% of women are employed in the public sector as opposed to 15% of men and therefore is concerned that cuts in the public sector will harm women more than men. What about the cuts in the private sector, not a peep from the women-first Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
It is all about tone and it can be clear that women come first.
Statistics
A regular reader has helpfully pulled out other significant figures affecting men (not mentioned above) which highlight where public policy attention needs to be focused:
- Three times as many men as women commit suicide, and rates are particularly high for younger men aged 25-44.
- Women live around four years longer than men but the gap has been shrinking and is expected to shrink further over time.
- Almost all people killed at work are men: only four fatalities (out of 129) at work in 2008/09 were women.
- Women experience over three-quarters of domestic violence and sexual assault, and encounter more extreme forms than do men.
- Around 1 in 10 people in England, Scotland and Wales report potential mental health problems. Women are more likely to report potential problems, but under-reporting may mean that levels of mental health problems for men are higher than they appear.
- Men are more likely to be overweight than women however, among Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black African populations, women are less likely to be of normal/healthy weight than men (data available for England only).
- Boys, pupils from some ethnic minority groups, and those eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) are performing less well as early as age 5.
- The relationship between ethnicity, literacy and numeracy is very strong and specific cases extremely negative; for example, being Black and male appears to have a greater impact on levels of numeracy than having a learning disability.
Media issues
What is always fascinating on a report like this is to look at how different media react and led with different points on the research. It gives a clear flavour of the thinking at these organisations. Obviously the media could have been fed certain lines of thinking but there is not much of that on the press release the Commission issued.
The Guardian led with homophobia, Daily Mail on Men, BBC on gender pay gap, Daily Telegraph on the middle classes and gender pay gap (a great debunking of the gender pay gap) and The Independent on gender pay.
Plans
Page 40 of the Executive Summary lists 15 action points, only one could be aimed at men. Although this is significant as it is on education, it still shows there is scant interest in helping men on the closing the health gap, the problems in the family court, the suicide gap, the employment gap and all the other issues where men are affected more than women.
This report relegates men to second class citizens and only mentions them when it it has no option.
Posted by Skimmington
Pushing all kinds of human right is need in modern world.
Posted by: fat burners | Tuesday, 15 March 2011 at 10:34